TORONTO -- Tatsuya Imai wants to do what the Blue Jays just came so close to doing.

The 27-year-old Japanese star is coming to Major League Baseball, posted earlier this month by the Saitama Seibu Lions with a signing window that expires Jan. 2. Even with the Dodgers already so rich in starting pitching, Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki have made it easy to draw a straight line between “star Japanese free agent” and Los Angeles.

Well, maybe not this time . Recently, Imai appeared on the show “Hodo Station” and spoke with Daisuke Matsuzaka ahead of his decision.

"Of course, I’d enjoy playing alongside Ohtani, Yamamoto and Sasaki," Imai told Matsuzaka, "but winning against a team like that and becoming a world champion would be the most valuable thing in my life. If a

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